Simplicity of the Soul
by lmeden
Summary: Harry Potter is deaf.
1. Prologue

TITLE: Simplicity of the Soul  
AUTHOR: lmeden  
PAIRING: none (for now)  
RATING: PG

WARNINGS: none  
DISCLAIMER: Not mine.

SUMMARY: Harry Potter is deaf.  
NOTE: Alright. So this was completely inspired by Sasaki Kojiro from the manga "Vagabond" (.com/manga/vagabond/). It's a completely stunning manga, and I was inspired beyond belief by Sasaki. I wanted to write what he experience, and see how a character who was deaf, but knew no sign language or really way of communication, would live. I actually want to write an original novel under that theme. But I decided to practice with fanfiction first.

-------

Professor McGonagall of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry frowned at small, identical houses that ran down the street, She had been watching the Dursley family - as a cat, no need to worry anyone unduly - for the entire day. She had not liked what she had seen. The Dursley father - Vernon, by all accounts - was a fat, snobbish man who delighted in his own presence. The woman was rather unattractive as well, like a particularly bad kind of shrew. The professor found it extremely hard to believe that the woman had ever been related to Lily.

She pursed her lips and frowned. The street lamps had just popped on. She glanced around but couldn't see anyone else on the street. So she transformed back to her human self and straightened her robes. The Headmaster would be here soon.

And then, mere instants later, the air shivered and cracked, and Headmaster Dumbledore appeared. He rummaged about in his robes, then pulled out a small silver object. As he held it up, every light on the street dimmed and went out. Professor McGonagall walked towards the old man.

"I'm glad that you've finally come. Hagrid said that you were coming, but not when. I've been waiting all day." He turned his eyes on her and raised his eyebrows slightly. She blushed and looked away.

"Yes," he mused. "I suppose that sitting around here all day would be enough to make anyone stiff." They walked along the street in silence for a moment.

Unable to resist and longer, Professor McGonagall spoke. "So, is it true...the rumors about James and Lily? Are they...?"

"Yes, they are dead. By Voldemort's own hand, it seems. But," he said, holding up a hand to forestall any further questions, "Harry lives."

"How?" gasped McGonagall, the first sign of any feeling besides disapproval that she had shown.

"That is a mystery, like all things, my good professor." With that the Headmaster pulled a small watch from his pocket and checked it. "Hargid is late." He stared up at the skies, his eyes serious over half-moon glasses.

The professor stared at him. "And you're bringing Harry here, to live with...them?" She waved her hand wildly at one of the small, identical houses that sat on the drive. "They're horrible. They don't care about James and Lily, they don't care about anything except themselves."

"Perhaps not, Minerva, but they will not cast Harry aside. I can be sure of that, at least." The last bit was a whisper that Professor McGonagall could not be sure she had heard correctly. "And at least here, Harry will not be worshipped as a savior. He will be a normal boy, without any responsibilities." His smile was sad as he turned to her. "And that is the best thing that I can give him."

There was a sudden rumbling and a motorcycle came flying towards them, ridden by a great giant of a man with bushy hair. He rode the bike as if it was seated firmly on the earth, and landed it smoothly on the road next to the two professors. There was a small bundle in his arms. As he clambered off the bike, Professor McGonagall reached forward and took the child.

He was small, she noted, with an angry red scar on his forehead. She had thought that he was asleep, but he watched her with calm green eyes. She turned to Hagrid - she knew how careless he could be. "What happened to him? He did not have this scar last I saw him."

Hagrid shook his head. "Had it when I picked him up, he did. Dunno more'n that." The Headmaster leaned forward to take a look. He stared at the scar for a long moment.

"A...leftover from Voldemort's attempt to kill him, I fear. I doubt that it will ever fade." And though the Dark Lord had been defeated the night before, and the streets of Wizarding London were filled with song, the Headmaster looked as though the entire world was weighing on him. He gestured and the three of them began to walk towards 4 Privet Drive.

"He was real good, ya know," Hagrid rambled. "Was sleepin' when I got to the house, and it was near fallin' apart. Woke up later, when the bike took off. 'E watched the sky for the whole ride. Ah could swear 'e didn't blink a' all."

Professor McGonagall frowned at the man. Her frown faded as she looked back down at the child in her arms. He was indeed very quiet. She was almost worried for a moment, but when she shifted him his eyes turned to her, before looking back at the stars far above. Then they were at the doorstep of the house.

The Headmaster held out his arms and took Harry from the professor. He looked at the small boy, then laid him down on the step. He reached into his robes and took out a small piece of folded parchment that he tucked into the bundle of blankets. Harry reached out a small hand and closed it carefully around the letter.

The adults soon left him, quiet on the step. Hargid drove the motorcycle - which wasn't his own - away, Professor McGonagall slunk around the corner as a cat, and the Headmaster apparated away, nearly soundlessly.

The small boy held onto his letter and watched the stars, slowly drifting off to sleep. He had not seen Lord Voldemort kill his parents. He had not heard the attack at all, had not heard his father's cries or his mother's pleading. He had not heard Voldemort's shriek as he died by his own Killing Curse. Harry had slept soundly that night, as he would for every night of his life.

For Harry Potter was deaf, and very alone.

* * *

_AN: Don't expect frequent updates here. The chapters are hefty, and I'm only halfway through the first one. I just wanted to get started._


	2. Alienation

---

The large man loomed over the boy. The man's face was dark and blocked out the white sun that hung so far above the two like a great fruit. The boy wished that he could eat that fruit sometimes. It would be like in the stories he had read at school. He could be adventurous and bold. He could climb the clouds and eat the sun.

Would it be juicy, he wondered? Like the fruits he sometimes stole from the kitchen table early in the morning? Was it that great fruit's juice that made a day like today so thick and stifling? He smiled.

The man's face creased and crinkled. His nose shriveled and his eyes disappeared into fat folds of flesh, like piled rocks. His mouth opened wide and moved around, opening and closing, opening and closing. Spit flew out.

The boy felt cold in the pit of his stomach and his smile faded. His heart beat fast in his chest and his breathing quickened. The large man's hand reached out for the boy but the boy slipped away and ran. He ran back into the house and through the house and out the front door and down the street. When he stopped a bit down the road, the large man was peering out the front door, unwilling to follow. The boy bared his teeth, turned, and ran again.

A car flashed past, and the boy followed it across the road. He was going to the library. The other boy, the great blond one who looked like the large man, wouldn't find him there. He could sit and read the books with picture in them.

He especially loved the one called _National Geographic_. It had such pretty pictures, and he could understand the words that went with the pictures. The boy hated books without pictures and only cramped, thin words. Most of the time he could barely understand those kind of books at all.

Books with pictures seemed real to him. More real than the house he lived in, or the horrible family that he had to live with.

---

A week later, the letters began arriving. They were heavy and written on a yellow-colored paper. The boy had never seen such paper. He found the first letter folded into the regular mail pile, and he snuck it into his cupboard to look at it. He held it up to the light and ran his fingers across the thick, rough paper that folded only with difficulty. He ran his fingers over the chunky seal at the back that held it together. And the words on the front, softly impressed into the paper with some strange, old-fashioned handwriting.

The boy pushed the letter closer and closer to the thin line of light coming through the edge of the door. He wanted to read it, but if the nasty family found that he had taken some of their mail, they would be furious. The would open and close their mouths quickly like they always did and maybe even not give him food.

The boy pushed closer to the door, then too close. The door to the cupboard popped open and the boy fell out. Coldness flooded him and he struggled to stand up, but he was clumsy all of a sudden and the large man was standing over him. The letter was snatched from him.

The boy stood up and backed toward the front door. He'd run again if he had to. The large man's eyes grew wide as he looked at the writing on the front of the letter, and his skin turned bright red. Then he swung around and lumbered to the back of the house where the rest of the family was, waving the letter.

The boy wondered what was so special about the words "_Mr H. Potter The Cupboard under the Stairs 4 Privet Drive Little Whinging Surrey_". It seemed all very strange to him that the man would be so effected by such a small thing.

The boy grinned. At least he wouldn't be getting into trouble over it. He turned and quickly slipped out the front door and walked down to the curb to watch the other people and animals and cars go by. They all acted so odd, working their mouths at each other, opening and closing them, that he loved to watch them.

---

The family came outside later to drag him back inside. But the large man did not literally pick the boy up and drag him, like he did most of the time. The man came over and pulled the boy up - relatively gently - by the arm, walking him inside, glancing quickly around the whole time.

The boy squinted up at him. This sort of kind behavior was unknown, coming from the man. Of course, the boy had seen the entire family being nice to each other, but it had never included _him_. When they got inside the house, the boy saw the thin, ugly woman standing in the door to the kitchen, wringing her hands. She didn't glare at him.

The man placed large, meaty hands on his shoulders, patting them and holding the boy still. The boy pursed his lips and stared. The man opened his mouth and worked it around at the boy, who looked back. This was completely boring. He enjoyed spending time outside and watching what happened there much more. He let his eyes wander, searching for a window to stare out of.

He looked back as he felt the man move away. The man opened the door to the boy's cupboard and grabbed the sheets and pillows that made up his small bed, pulling them out into the hall. The boy panicked, ice shooting through him. They were finally going to throw him out. No. He hated it here, but he would die if he had to live in the street. He wouldn't have any food, or any place to sleep. He ran forward and tugged on the large man's trouser leg. He would stay, he wouldn't run outside so much, he would do anything that he could if only they would feed him and give him a place to sleep.

The large man pursed him lips and shoved the boy away so that he tumbled to the ground. The man froze for a moment, then gathered up all the bedclothes and started up the stairs. The boy scrambled to his feet and followed. The large man walked to the second floor, opened the door to a room filled with the broken toys of the other boy, and dumped the sheets and pillows there. The boy stared.

Were they going to let him stay here, then? The boy stepped slowly into the room, peering around. The man walked out of the room, pushed the boy further in, and then closed the door as he left. The boy grinned. They were going to let him stay here! It was such a grand room. Old toys filled every corner and were piled on a small bed by the window. There was a window! The boy ran over and pushed toys aside, staring at the grand view of the other houses on the street.

The boy had never been so high in his life. He smiled wide, breathing fast. It was a palace!

---

The boy slept well that night. This was a real bed that he was sleeping in, not a pile of blankets and a few smelly pillows, a real bed. That morning he took it upon himself to lie in, and he enjoyed greatly seeing the pink and gold sunrise from over the tops of nearby houses. Truly magical.

Then the door to _his_ new room was thrown open and the thin, horse-faced woman stalked in and opened and closed her mouth tensely. She grabbed him by the shoulder, though not so tightly as some days, and dragged him down the stairs and into the kitchen, standing him in front of the stove. She wanted breakfast, the boy supposed. He bared his teeth at her behind her back. He hated her. Perhaps not so much had changed as he had hoped.

This was supported a moment later when the terrible fat boy that he had to go to school with came into the kitchen and proceeded to throw some sort of fit, tossing chairs, swinging that horrible stick he had gotten around, and even kicking at his parents. He turned purple in the process. Eventually the large man came down and wrestled the boy into his seat.

Of course, the boy's conviction in believing the family as nasty as ever was tested just a few moments later. The boy had finished cooking, and the family had begun the daily devouring (in the worst possible sense) of their food, when the large man paused and cocked his head. The boy stood up from where he had been eating his few slices of bacon to get the mail. Usually, if he didn't move right away when the man cocked his head, the man would forcibly shove him towards the front door.

But today, the man pushed him back towards his stool, and turned to his large son. He worked his mouth around, and so did the boy, and they had both turned red before the son shot a nasty look at the boy and stalked off. The boy was astounded, and he nibbled absently on his last slice of bacon as he watched the family. The _son_ had been sent off to do a chore instead of him? It made no sense. No sense at all.

The large boy brought the mail in a few moments later, handed it to his father, and attempted to flounce into his chair. He nearly knocked the chair and himself over instead. The boy smothered his smile and looked at the father instead, and the mail.

There was another parchment letter in the stack. The large man seemed to see it as well. He shot a quick look at the thin woman, then pulled the letter out and slipped it under the table. But the large boy had seen it as well. He stood up and craned his head, working his mouth at his father. His father worked his mouth back, and soon they were all standing and red, mouths wide like fishes.

The boy grimaced at them all then slipped around them unnoticed. He wanted to see what was so special about the parchment letters that the family was hiding them away. When he got close to the large man he made a dive for the letter, but his greasy fingers gave him a poor grip and soon he was grappling for the letter with the rest of the family.

A sudden swift knock in the head with the large boy's stick dislodged him, and the woman dragged him away, shoving him and the large boy up the stairs, towards their rooms. She hurried back towards the kitchen and the door whipped closed behind her.

The fat boy made a twisted face at him then shoved up the stairs, snapping his cane around to hit the boy on the shoulder as he went.

---

The trees outside the schoolroom were swaying. The boy supposed there was a breeze today. He _so_ wanted to be outside and not stuck in this stuffy classroom. He glanced at the front of the room, but the teacher was still pacing, waving her arms like some sort of demented bird. Same as always.

He braced his head on his hand and stared down at the book in front of him.

_Sally turned and smiled at his surprised face. "Well, say something, silly."_

_He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He was stunned by how pretty she looked._

Dull. They were reading fiction, but he didn't see why the book had to be so...girly. He frowned and looked back out the window, then quickly back at the book. Something had struck him.

The boy in the story. It had said that he 'opened his mouth to speak'. The boy was breathless. To speak! He had never understood that term when he read it. The word, and the quotation marks that so often accompanied it, had made no sense to him. They had, from what he could see, implied a sort of communication, like writing a letter or sending a telegraph to another person.

But it happened when people opened their mouths. That meant that that silly moving of their mouths that everyone, especially the family, seemed to do was _speaking_! Perhaps he could do it, then. He looked at the boy sitting across the row, and stared until he looked back. Then he thought hard, and opened and closed his mouth.

_You are an ugly boy and I don't like you_, he thought. He figured that that sort of sentence would provoke a reaction, but nothing. The boy simply blinked at him, then grimaced and turned back to the front of the room. That was not it then. But then how could one speak? And why had he never understood it when others spoke? They had obviously mastered something he had never even noticed.

The boy glanced back to the front and saw the teacher working her way towards him. Oh, this couldn't be good. When she got to the front of his desk she leaned down until her eyes were level with his and opened her mouth. She was speaking. Speaking to him!

This cast a whole new light on life for the boy. People weren't merely looking silly when they opened their mouths, they were communicating. He wondered what his teacher was trying to communicate and squinted at her. Maybe if he concentrated harder...

But all this got him was a close view as her lips suddenly pursed and she flung out her arm to point towards the door to the room. Her mouth fairly snapped open and closed. She was angry. The boy smiled at his sudden discovery and bounded up. All this required was practice, really. He grabbed his bag, and, following her finger, left the room.

He would go outside. He could certainly find more people to watch there. Perhaps he'd even figure the whole thing out.

---

But speaking turned out to be more difficult to figure out than the boy had ever imagined. He knew from books that speaking - this incomprehensible form of communication - took the form of recognizable words. He knew the shapes of these words and he knew the concepts that the words defined. He knew that the building that he and the family lived in was called a house, and that the thing they used for transport was called a car.

He also knew that people had things called names. They seemed to be words that were used for one person only, and served - like a word - to define them. He knew that his schoolteacher's name was Ms Bellar, because she had written it on the board. But the large boy that he lived with, along with the rest of the family, remained nameless. They had never taken the time to spell out their names to the boy, and he had long ago ceased to care what they were called.

What he really wanted to know a his own name - but he had no way of finding it. None at all. The boy had learned to not think about that sort of thing years ago.

Instead he watch the passersby. He watched them walk fast or slow or in sync or not at all - as they stood on the street corner and smoked fags. The people all looked different, with different colored hair and different length legs, but they all talked. Some talked to people far away, and some talked to the person right next to them.

No one was simply looking like he was.

The boy pursed his lips and sat his head on his knees. This was a difficult thing to puzzle out, he realized. He would not be able to learn to talk by wishing it. The whole concept was like magic, really. And he still hadn't resolved the problem of the word 'hearing'. It seemed related talking, but he had no clue how.

So he gave up eventually, and went back to the house. He watched the family speak to each other for the rest of the night, and learned not a thing.

---

Then, over the next few days, a more immediate problem presented itself. The parchment letters came day after day, and in greater and greater numbers, until they came by the hoard. The boy stared in amazement as they flooded through the small slot in the front door, and then, on Sunday, through the chimney. _Who were these letters for?_

He had been able to get ahold of a few of the letters, though not for long. They were all addressed to Mr H. Potter. It was a name, but whose? It could be anyone in the family, even him. No, not him. He never received letters.

Then which of the family? And why did they hate the letters so? What was in them? The boy was horribly confused about the whole thing.

Then, the large man gathered the entire family together and loaded them in the car. He even shoved the boy in. And then they left, and drove away. Away in the car.

It was all very sudden, and left the boy stunned. They were taking a trip, and they were bringing him. Ridiculous. They'd never done it before. In the front seat the large man and horrible woman were speaking to each other angrily as he drove.

Perhaps not a vacation, but a trip all the same. He grinned and pressed his face to the window - watched the houses and trees and other cars stream by. No floods of letters and no horrible schoolteacher. A change!

---

The boy's breath caught, and his smile stretched his face wide. This was _amazing_. Beyond amazing, really, but he couldn't think of any word that he had read that would describe it. He was standing on the slick rocks of a tiny island. For whatever reason, the large man and his family had chosen this place to stay. The boy loved it.

He loved to look down and watch the mighty waves shatter on the rocks below. He loved feeling the power vibrate through the rocks and up his toes with every smashing wave. And he loved looking at the brilliant glow of the setting sun. Everything was so beautiful and wild.

He had left the large man and his family behind the instant that the little boat had stopped moving. He had hopped out and run along the pier and across the rocks to the very edge of the island. And had sat there in that very spot since.

The boy had no idea how long had passed since they had arrived, but the sun had been high when he sat down, so he knew that it must have been hours. He was so happy to have been ignored, and not forced to do things. But then, just as he was thinking this, the boy's arm was seized.

His heart twisted and he leapt to his feet. The large man had come over and grasped his arm. The man grimaced, said something, and proceeded to drag the boy away.

The boy spit and bared his teeth. He hated the man. He always took the boy away from the beautiful things - the things that he loved. But no matter how hard he pulled, the boy could not get away.

So he was pulled through the door of the small house on the island - a dank, dark, and dirty house. He twisted, trying to get away again. The last thing that he saw before the door was flung shut was the sun, vanishing over the horizon and locking them all in darkness for the night.

---

The boy did not wake until the other, larger boy, stumbled over him in fear. The boy woke in panic as he tried to breath but could not. Then he heaved, and the other boy rolled off of him. He sucked in deep breaths.

The boy squinted and saw that the larger boy's face was distorted in fear, staring at the door. The boy turned to look and saw an immense silhouette crowding the doorway, backlit by flashes of lightning from a storm raging outside. The door itself had been torn from its hinges and lay, broken, on the floor.

The boy sucked in a deep breath of air in shock, and struggled away from the man like the larger boy had been doing. He kept moving backwards until he hit the wall, where he froze. It was a monster! A real, live _monster_! The boy couldn't take his eyes off it, torn between sheer fascination and terror.

The monster moved, striding straight over top of the fallen door. As he walked in the faint glow from the lantern inside lit him, revealing him to be a rather large man, and not a monster at all. The boy took a deep breath, but his fear was slow in leaving him.

The giant with his great mane of bushy black hair began to speak, opening and closing his mouth and looking around. His eyes fell on the two boys crouched in the corner. He stepped closer. The giant looked at the larger boy and began to speak. The boy glanced over, and saw the larger boy's eyes widen quickly.

The larger boy began to shake his head and wave his hands. Then, suddenly, he pointed at the boy. His heart skipped a beat at being so unexpectedly singled out. Perhaps the larger boy was telling the giant to eat him? The giant might be a monster after all. Warily, the boy looked back at the giant, to see him pulling something out of the inside of his enormous leather coat.

It was a letter. One of the letters that had been coming in great numbers for the past few weeks. One of the letters that had caused such a reaction in the large man. One of those beautiful parchment letters.

The boy had wondered who the letters were for. Judging by the giant's gesture, those letters were for him.

He stared at the letter for a moment, stunned by the impossibility of the letter being for _him_, but when the giant didn't pull his hand back, the boy reached for it. The letter was heavy and rough in his hand. He squinted in the scant light and saw that it was addressed to the same person that it had always been addressed to. And if that was him...

That meant that he had a name. A name!

He was Mr H Potter. Mr H Potter. He looked up at the bushy-haired giant. The man was smiling and speaking. Mr Potter was very sad for a moment that he couldn't understand. But then the giant gestured, and intrigued, the boy made his way over.

Mr Potter saw, in a flash of lightning, the large man and the thin woman, standing near the bottom of the stairs and watching the giant fearfully. They backed away as Mr Potter looked up and saw them, seeming to want to leave but not be able to. The boy plopped himself down on the couch, clutching the letter but unwilling to open it just yet. It all seemed unreal.

Then the giant pulled out a large box from somewhere in his coat. He held it out to Mr Potter, who took it gingerly from him, and lifted the lid. A cake! A cake like the kind that the large boy and other children got once a year when they celebrated. The boy had never been included, so he had no idea what they were celebrating.

Written across the cake was the somewhat smashed but legible phrase, _Happy Birthday Harry_. Yet again, the boy stared.

It was his birthday. The day that he was born. He was a year older today. He had never known when. And he had received a name. He was Harry Potter.

---


	3. Wonderful, Terrible Magic

---

The giant led Harry down the crowded London streets. Harry smiled to himself. Every time he thought a thought, and realized that he, _Harry_, was thinking it, he felt a thrill. A name! He had a name! He was someone.

He smiled up at the giant as they walked. The man's black hair sprang up and down with his massive steps, and Harry was forced to nearly run alongside. He smiled up at the giant and the giant smiled his awkward smile back.

When the giant had left after that night on the island, Harry had been afraid that he would never see the man again. He was grateful to him for giving him his name, and for giving him a new future.

Harry slipped his hand into his pocket and felt the parchment letter within. He was still amazed by it, and by what it said. The letter was from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry - and with such a grand name Harry was tempted to think that it was made up, from a story. But the letter wasn't, and this amazing man was here to prove it.

Harry was a wizard, apparently. He wondered what that meant.

Harry had heard of witches and magic before, in storybooks. They were amazing things that didn't exist in the real world - but apparently they did. But Harry didn't know what a wizard was, at first. Something to do with magic, Harry knew, but what?

That night on the rock, as Harry had been puzzling out the letter in the dim light of the fire, the giant had moved suddenly and startled Harry. He had pulled an umbrella out of his coat and pointed it past Harry. Sparks flew from the tip, and when Harry, eternally surprised, turned to look, the large boy was sporting a pig's tail. The other boy jumped about, hitting at the tail, his face distorted in distress. He ran across the room to his parents.

Now he wondered. Did being a wizard mean that he would be able to do such awesome things. It thrilled and frightened Harry just to think about it. Maybe he could even fly!

And now the man was back, and had taken Harry from that horrible family's house, and they were going on an adventure. Harry followed the giant as they walked through a great city with thousands of cars and people and buildings that rose up to touch the sky.

Harry had always prided himself on being observant, but the giant was even more so. He turned and pulled Harry straight through a door that Harry had looked right at, and not seen, a second before.

Inside was a small room, dark and smoky. Exotic people in odd clothes lounged around all the tables. As Harry and the giant walked through, everyone suddenly turned to looked at Harry. He froze. What were they looking at? All the people were staring at him. Warily, he stared back. Then the giant grabbed him and whisked him out through the back door. He was grateful to have the staring eyes disappear.

They were in a tiny little alley off the back of the building. Harry looked around, but could find a way out of the stone walls. He looked up and saw the sky glinting blue above. Were they going to climb? Doubtful, he looked at the giant.

The giant smiled mischievously and pulled his umbrella out. Harry watched it warily – last time he had seen it, it had given the large boy a tail. The giant reached forward and touched a few of the stones on the wall with its tip. After a moment, they jerked and began to slide shakily aside. Harry's eyes grew wide and his jaw dropped. Amazing.

There was a street behind the wall! Harry didn't know where the street had come from, but it was obviously magical. The bricks had moved for themselves - and he had never seen anything like these shops. They were amazing and bright. Lights soared in and out of thick glass windows - right through! People were wearing long robes - the likes of which Harry had never seen - that danced with shapes and colors that moved all on their own.

Harry felt his breath catch short in his chest. His eyes grew wide - wider than they had even grown - so that he felt as if they might fall straight out of his head. But Harry wasn't worried about that. With all this magic, they could put his eyes right back in.

The giant began walking down the street and Harry hurriedly followed. The place was swarming with people, like bees he had seen once in a book. He clung to giant's robes, and it seemed like they walked taller by far than any other building on the street. He gaped up at it. He didn't think his mouth would ever close again.

---

The great white building had been amazing! All that gold and there had been a huge creature lurking down in the dark and they had zoomed down to little rooms that were locked and unlocked by tiny shriveled people and Harry couldn't wait to go back. He turned, trying to stick close to the giant, and saw a sign on the front of the building.

But he had never seen the words on it before, and he didn't have time to decipher them in the press of the crowd.

Harry stuck close to the giant and suddenly they slipped into a dark shop, filled with books. The books were bound with covers of all colors, and stacked high and looming against the old wooden walls. The giant turned and said something and held out his hand. Harry stared.

What did the man want? Harry had nothing of his. He spoke and Harry stared. He hated when people did that. They assumed that he could understand, but he couldn't. He stared up at the giant, whose lips had pursed and was talking more sharply. The giant was getting tenser and tenser.

Harry frowned. He had never felt bad about someone speaking to him before. He had always found their reactions and faces amusing as they saw that he didn't understand. But not now. Now slimy guilt churned in his stomach. He felt as if he was deceiving the kindly giant. He shuffled his feet against the floor and looked down for a moment.

Then he turned and ran back into the shelves. He couldn't stand the giant looking like that.

Harry peered out from between the books on the shelves. The giant was staring at the shelves where Harry had run, looking confused. Harry stuffed his hands into his face to smother his smile. That was a truly ridiculous expression on such a large man. Then the giant shrugged and moved away. Harry ran back farther into the shelves. He would stay here for a while.

He walked around, staring up at the looming piles of books that seemed to form arches over the thin aisles. The shop smelled musty, and old. Harry wrinkled his nose and shoved his hands in his pockets. His right hand hit thick parchment, and he paused. The letter from the school. He pulled it out and looked at it again. On the second page was a list of supplies. Many of the supplies were books.

That _must_ have been why the giant wanted to come here. For the books! Harry smiled, grateful to have figured the mystery out. Then, squinting down at the list in the dim candlelight filtering through the stacks, he wandered once more, trying to locate the required books for his new school. And his new life.

---

Harry was standing at the counter with the shopkeeper glaring angrily at him when the giant came back. Harry frowned. He didn't know what the man was so angry about, and that frustrated him. The giant patted him on the shoulder, and as Harry staggered he saw the man pull a pile of glinting coins from his pocket.

Oh. The shopkeeper had wanted payment for the books. He flushed. He felt like a fool for not knowing, but when all he could see was a man gesturing and waving his arms - well, what was he supposed to do?

He gathered his books and rushed from the store, quickly flattening himself against the wall at the sight of the crowds outside. The giant came out shortly behind him and pushed through the crowd to Harry. Harry crowded close, grateful for the protection. Then the giant pulled something large out of his coat. It was an enormous cage, and inside it was an owl. The giant smiled his huge smiled and pulled the schoolbooks from Harry's arms. Then he passed him the cage.

Harry gaped at the beautiful white bird. She was gorgeous. But why had the giant given the bird to him? The bird snapped her beak open and closed and swiveled her head to look at him, eyes golden and burning. Harry glanced up at the giant. The man nodded, and Harry stared back at the bird, eyes wide and heart beating. Was she...his?

She was stunning. The giant was still smiling, and heart swelling, Harry smiled back.

---

They visited many shops that day, squeezing through the cracks in the crowd and trying to avoid dangerous children who ran without seeing a thing. Once Harry saw another alley off to the side. The people walking in it were hunched over and slow. It seemed much calmer than where he was at the moment, and grateful for the sight of freedom from the crowds he moved toward it.

Only to be seized by his shirt and hauled backwards by the giant. Startled, Harry had looked up at the tall man's face and saw that it was full of fear, shaking. He understood. The dark alley was dangerous. They moved on

Each shop they visited gifted Harry with new and wonderful memories. There was a shop with dead creatures stuffed into jars and witches's cauldrons just like in the stories piled high and teetering. There was a shop filled with robes of all sizes and colors, and a boy with the blondest hair Harry had ever seen flouncing around. In each shop he wandered slowly, taking his time to touch all the wonderful things as the giant used Harry's list to find what was required.

But the shop that impressed Harry the most was Ollivander's, the wand shop. At first, reading the sign above the small shop, Harry had been confused. A wand? He wasn't sure what a wand was at all until they walked inside. The shop was filled with thousands and thousands of little boxes. A couple sat with their tops skew, and Harry could see spindly wooden twigs that nestled inside.

Oh. So that was what those sticks that all the other people in the street carried around were. Wands. There was a tall man inside the shop. He was thin and hunched, with silver hair. Harry watched him creep closer. This was the oddest shopkeeper so far, he thought as he stared.

As the man crept closer, Harry stepped towards the giant. The old man opened his mouth, then quickly closed it. His forehead puckered and he frowned at Harry. He looked up at the giant and said something, then vanished among the shelves of long boxes.

Just a few moments later the silver-haired man returned. He carried a long thin box. As he approached Harry he slipped the top of the box off with a flourish, picked up the slender wand inside, and handed it to Harry. Harry grasped the wand, then frowned at it. It felt like a normal piece of wood. Harry had thought that a magical wand would have felt different - magical. Apparently not.

He lifted the wand and saw a nearby vase shatter in the corner of his vision. As it fell to pieces and scattered over the floor Harry flinched back. The old man whisked the wand from him and brought back another. Harry hesitated to take this one, after the vase, but the old man pushed. No vases shattered this time, but nothing else happened either.

The old man repeated this process several times. He would bring out a wand in its box, hand it to Harry, and then whisk the wand away, apparently unsatisfied. Then, finally, he brought an extremely dusty box forward.

Harry stared at the box, interested. None of the others had been dusty - this one had obviously not been touched in a long time. Silver hair cloaking his face, the man pulled out the wand and handed it to Harry. As soon as Harry touched it he knew that this wand was the one. Warmth rushed through him and he felt his face flush.

Harry grinned up at the man, who smiled his small smile and nodded back. He held out the box and Harry reluctantly placed the wand within. The old man gestured and the giant followed him over to a small desk, where the old man wrote a note and took payment in glinting coins from the giant. Harry watched intently. He couldn't wait to use the wand!

---

Later, as Harry sat among his belongings in the small house and room he lived in, he cradled the box with the wand in it. He wanted to savor opening it, so he held it for a moment.

He ran his hands over the textured burgundy paper that covered it, dipped and rippled like smooth asphalt – a familiar and luxurious feeling. The satin ribbon that served as decoration felt like water itself pouring through his fingers as he slipped it off the box. And the soft wax of the seal on the top, puckered and intricately designed. When he pulled his fingers away from it, he discovered that the seal had melted slightly under the heat of his fingers, and the 'Olliv' part of the name 'Ollivander's' was slightly askew.

He pulled the box open, and a small slip of paper tumbled out. Curious, Harry picked it up and tried for a few minutes to decipher the crowded, scratchy handwriting. He finally managed it.

_Mr Potter,_

_It is my duty to inform you as to the special nature of this wand. Each wand is created from wood and core, and the core of your wand connects it to another's wand. You see, the core of your wand is made of phoenix feather. The phoenix who gave the feather in your wand gave one other feather for a wand. That wand belongs to Lord Voldemort, the man who killed your parents. Be wary of the connection, for it may serve you well or ill._

_Ollivander_

Harry let the note slip from his hand unfeeling, and stared at the wand, innocently nestled in its box.

---

The giant had given Harry a train ticket when he had left the second time, and after much deliberation he had shown it to the family. The large man had turned many colors and scowled, and the woman had flinched away. But eventually they had nodded and pushed him away. That was as good of a response as he would get. They would take him.

He was going to school. A magic school. But his joy was dulled.

He went back to his room and took out the letter from Ollivander. He had thought about it a lot in the past few days. Lord Voldemort - and what a funny name that was - had killed his parents. Harry wasn't really sure who his parents were. He had read about parents in books. They seemed to be people who cared for children - gave them food and a place to live and such things. The family gave those things to him, but Harry didn't believe for an instant that they were his parents.

They weren't nice to him, like parents in the storybooks were. And Ollivander had written that his parents were dead. That mean that the large man and horsey woman were not his parents.

That left Harry in a bit of a spot. Who were his parents, then? And why couldn't he remember them?

---

The train station was more crowded than the street that the giant had taken him to. Harry stood, amazed.

Now that he was here, he really had no idea of where to go. He looked down at his ticket. It seemed to have been printed from the same kind of paper as the letter had been. Across it, in bold red letters, were the words "Hogwarts Express, Platform 9 3/4". He frowned down. What was that supposed to mean?

Harry wandered around the station with the ticket out, squinting at the signs through his glasses and lugging a wheeled cart with all his stuff on it. Once a person even bent down to look at the ticket, then shook his head and walked away. Harry frowned after him and kept looking.

Harry, his eyes keen to see all they could, finally found Platform 9 3/4. Actually, he found not the platform itself, but other people who were holding the tickets. He caught a flash of gold off their tickets from the corner of his eye, and followed it to a red-haired family crowded near the column between the signs for Platforms 9 and 10. Harry stood close to them and watched, only mildly astonished as they began to run, one by one, at the column, and disappear through it.

Sure that this was the answer to his problem, he ran at the column himself once they had all gone. After a moment of disorientation and a dizzying blur that past by his eyes, Harry found himself on another platform altogether. It was crowded with people of all ages, wearing robes and pants and dress and some of the strangest clothes that Harry had ever seen. It reminded him of the street of shops he had visited with the giant. He knew he had found the right spot.

Dragging his bags behind him and trying to balance the lovely bird, Harry pushed through the crowds to the train. He managed to stumble on with help from an older student, and he walked down the hall.

He walked past the row of small rooms that lined the inside of the train. There were many of them, with tall children and small children sitting inside, or walking around outside the rooms - all of them speaking. Harry pushed past those rooms until he found one that was empty. He walked in, slid the door closed behind him, and hefted his bags up onto the rack high above.

He sat and looked out the window, watching the children and their families on the platform.

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye Harry spotted something moving, and he turned quickly. A girl had walked into his compartment and was shoving her bags up into the racks. She was small and had an enormous amount of bushy brown hair. Harry frowned at her for a moment before she turned to him. She said something and held out her hand.

He had seen the gesture before. Lots of people did it, though no one had ever done it with him. Smiling slightly he reached out and clasped her hand. She shook it up and down. It was very odd, he thought. The gesture was very, very odd. He nodded to her one last time and went back to looking out the window.

Moments later, a piece of paper was slipped onto his lap by the girl. Harry frowned at it, annoyed to have been distracted from his watching. He looked at the girl, who simply smiled at him and gestured to the note. He looked down at it and his frown deepened as he attempted to decipher the handwriting.

_Can you hear me? I've been trying to talk you but you don't seem to hear me._

Harry looked up at her. Hear her? It was one of those words that was related to speaking. And it meant nothing to him. He looked at her for a moment, because he couldn't write back to her without something write with, before she jumped and handed him the pencil she had been rolling between her palms. He took it gingerly. So, she wanted him to write back? Well, since he didn't know what the word even meant, he would say no. He bit his lip.

He reached out and wrote, _No understand_ He handed the paper back, flushing. He hated writing things. They never seemed to come out the way he wanted them to. The girl looked down at the note, then scribbled something else and handed it back.

_What don't you understand?_

He scribbled back. _No understand hear_

She gaped at the note, them scribbled back. _So y__ou can't hear? Can you speak?_

_No speak_

The girl read the note and chewed on her lips. Her hands moved nervously around on the pencil. Harry watched her, more interested in her antics than what the people on the platform were doing. Finally she wrote something and handed the note slowly back to him.

_If you can't speak, how will you do magic? You need to speak to be able to perform spells._

Harry read the notes, frowning until he had figured its contents out. His eyes widened and his heart plummeted. Magic had seemed so wonderful. Maybe too wonderful. And now, now he couldn't do any magic because he didn't know how to speak? His heart plummeted, and with a shaking hand he wrote back.

_No do magic?_

She read the note and shook her head, writing back again.

_If you can't speak, then you can't do magic._

He let the crowded note fall to the floor and looked back out the window at the laughing families and children.

The girl moved until she was sitting across from him. Her face was sad and she shrugged. She couldn't help him. No one could. Unless he could learn to speak, he would have to back to that horrible family and home. He would never experience magic again.


End file.
